Providing information to workers within a manufacturing or supply chain workspace is an important part of ensuring that tasks are performed efficiently, accurately, and safely. Such information can be provided in a variety of ways, and could include flashing lights to alert a worker of danger, a wall mounted display to indicate a work station in need of additional workers, a speaker projecting audio messages across an area, and handheld or wearable electronic devices configured to provide instructional interfaces. Many such conventional devices have disadvantages or limitations which may be undesirable for some implementations.
As an example, a wall mounted display may provide information to ten or more people within a viewable range of the display, but it is less ideal for targeting a message at a single person among the ten. Additionally, a wall mounted display may require a person to turn their head or body away from a task they are working on to view the display. This interrupts their work and could impact the efficiency or safety of the performance of their task. A speaker projecting an audio message is similarly limited in that it is difficult to target a message at a single individual without distracting others. Handheld or wearable electronic devices are more effective at targeting messages to individuals, but, in addition to being expensive and prone to loss or damage as compared to a static fixture, they may draw the user's attention away from the task at hand during interactions with the device.
One way in which some of these limitations are addressed is to provide point-of-use indicators that are designed to provide a message to a worker that relates to a task they are performing and are placed proximate to that task. For example, a conveyor belt may advance whenever a button is depressed by a worker, and the worker may be instructed to press the button whenever the downstream workers are prepared for more work. A point-of-use indicator for this situation might be an indicator light placed next to the button that is either lit green when downstream workers are prepared, or unlit when there is some issue or delay causing them to be unprepared.
In this manner, a worker looking at and pressing the button to advance the conveyor belt will have the indicator light positioned within their line of sight without shifting their attention away from the button they must press. As compared to a system where the worker must stand and peer out across a work floor to visually confirm preparedness of downstream workers, it can be seen how such a point-of-use indicator could increase efficiency by reducing the time between preparedness and a button press and reduce the likelihood of the button being pressed when downstream workers are unprepared.
Conventional point-of-use indicators have struggled to find a balance between the ability to deliver simple messages that are not easily misinterpreted, while still maintaining the flexibility to deliver a wide range of messages. With the prior example, a single green light which can either be lit or unlit only offers two possible states, so while it is unlikely to be misinterpreted it is also of limited use in providing messages.
What is needed, therefore, is an improved system for delivering point-of-use information via lighted indicators.